Wormwood is a highly aromatic ornamental herb with
soft silvery leaves. Both photos show plants at the same age. However, the
top picture shows a Wormwood plant that was chewed off by rabbits twice during the
first couple of months of its growth. It never did bloom that year, which is not
necessarily a bad thing. The tiny flowers on a Wormwood are
not all that spectacular and the elongation of the stems as they go toward
bloom makes the plant start to fall apart. So, the rabbit did us a favor by
keeping our plants nicely manicured.

The second photo shows a Wormwood
plant that was left alone and has started to elongate in preparation to
bloom. These longer stems make good filler for making our fresh herbal wreaths.

Wormwood has been used throughout history for
medicinal purposes. But perhaps its most famous contribution to history
starts in the late 1700's when it is used as the primary component in the
spirit Absinthe. Thought to be highly addictives and psychoactive it was
banned in this country from 1913 until 2007.